The Sarah McBride, Nancy Mace Bathroom Controversy, Explained
Topline
Rep.-elect Sarah McBride, D-Del., who is set to become the first openly transgender member of Congress, won’t be allowed to use women’s restrooms in the U.S. Capitol as House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., enacted a new rule after Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., led a push for the ban that she said was “absolutely” targeted at McBride.
Sarah McBride at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024.
Key Facts
Mace introduced a resolution Monday prohibiting any lawmakers and House employees from using the single-sex bathroom that doesn’t correspond with their biological sex at birth, with Johnson enacting the new rule Wednesday.
Johnson said all single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House office buildings will be reserved for people “of that biological sex,” and that “women deserve women’s only spaces.”
McBride did not immediately respond to Forbes’ request for comment on Johnson’s statement Wednesday, though on Monday she called the ban effort a “blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing.”
On Tuesday, Mace said the move was “absolutely and then some” a response to McBride’s election, adding “I am not going to stand for a man, you know someone with a penis in the women’s locker room – that’s not okay.”
Mace also evoked her experience as a survivor of sexual assault, saying “I’ve suffered at the hands of a man and I know how vulnerable women and girls are in private spaces.”
Fellow representatives have had mixed reactions to the push to regulate where transgender people use the restroom—Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., supported Mace while some Democratic colleagues like Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. and Rep. Joe Morelle, D-N.Y. spoke up for McBride.
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Crucial Quote
“Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness,” McBride said Monday.
Key Background
McBride, 34, was earlier this month elected to represent Delaware’s at-large congressional district. She earned 57.9% of votes to defeat Republican challenger John Whalen III, and will succeed Democrat Lisa Blunt Rochester, who won election to the Senate. McBride has served in the Delaware State Senate since 2021 and previously served as press secretary of the pro-LGBTQ activist group Human Rights Campaign. McBride came out publicly as transgender in 2011 in an editorial in the student newspaper while at American University in Washington, D.C. She started an internship at the White House months later and was the first openly transgender woman to work in the White House in any role. She published a book, titled “Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality” in 2018. President Joe Biden wrote the foreword.
Who Is Rep. Nancy Mace?
Mace, 46, was elected to represent South Carolina in the House in 2020. She stood against many of her Republican colleagues and did not support challenges to the 2020 election results. She also criticized then-President Donald Trump for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, pushing Trump to endorse her opponent in the 2022 House election (Mace won anyway). Mace voted against impeaching Trump and later endorsed him in the 2024 presidential primary over former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, pushing Politico to call her one of Trump’s “unlikeliest top defenders.”
Tangent
A law requiring all students to use bathrooms that match their biological sex at birth went into effect in July in Mace’s home state of South Carolina. Last week, an anonymous transgender middle school student sued the state in federal court after he said he felt he had no choice but to switch to an online schooling program to avoid having to use the girls bathroom or a private nurse’s bathroom.
Further Reading
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